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  Out Of Mecklenburg

  The Unwilling Spy

  James Remmer

  Copyright © 2017 James Remmer

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador

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  Tel: 0116 279 2299

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  ISBN 9781788031752

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Dedicated to the memory of my wonderful and adorable wife,

  Joan.

  Thank you, sweetheart. This book is for you, all of it.

  Without you, none of it would have been

  possible.

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  POSTSCRIPT

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  During WWII, Germany’s insatiable appetite for political and military intelligence was fed principally by two, rival, organisations: the military Abwehr, headed by the enigmatic Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and the foreign intelligence arm of the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD as it was known.

  A Nazi-conceived organization, the SD formed an integral part of Germany’s mainstay security apparatus, the Reich Security Main Administration (RSHA), to which the Gestapo was also responsible. Under the authority of SS supremo Heinrich Himmler, it was led by the fanatical and ruthless Reinhard Heydrich.

  As chief of his foreign intelligence branch, Heydrich appointed an aspiring and startlingly young SS officer who would eventually rise to even greater heights in the Nazi pecking order. His name was Walter Schellenberg. Heydrich remained head of the RSHA until his assassination in June 1942, and was eventually succeeded by the equally ruthless Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

  In the clandestine world of German espionage, the Abwehr and the SD should have been enough, but in 1941, as Hitler prepared to invade Russia, along came the quasi spy branch of the German Foreign Office, brainchild and hobbyhorse of the egotistical Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister.

  This hotchpotch of espionage agencies spawned a culture of contempt, distrust and envy: the SD had no time for the Abwehr and the Abwehr held no respect for the SD, while both were equally dismissive of von Ribbentrop’s fledgling Foreign Office spy branch.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The end of WWII brought significant changes to the political map of Europe. National boundaries were redrawn and many villages, towns, cities and streets therein were renamed: for example, Krummhübel, which was once part of Germany, is now in Poland and known as Karpacz. For the sake of historical accuracy, I have used the designations pertinent to the period in which the book is set.

  1

  Monday 23rd June 1941

  German Foreign Office, Berlin

  It was terse, wholly unexpected and positively unnerving:

  LEAVE CANCELLED. REMAIN IN YOUR OFFICE.

  By Order, Doctor Alfred Wehmen, Assistant Under-Secretary of State.

  Carl von Menen read the memo again and again, each time the author’s signature sending a shudder of fear surging down his spine. Wehmen, the spirit of Machiavelli. Why the hell hasn’t Clarita phoned me?

  Convinced that the lid had been lifted on his clandestine life, von Menen paced impatiently back and forth the entire length of his office, wanting desperately to call a number at Wittenberge, but thinking better of it. If Wehmen has the merest hint of my covert activities, he’ll have alerted the switchboard and ordered all my outside calls logged.

  He sat down, took a deep breath, picked up his phone and dialled an internal extension. There was no reply.

  Over the next three hours, he tried the same number repeatedly. No reply.

  An hour later, his phone knelled into life. He reached hesitantly across his desk, lifted the handset and brought it slowly to his ear, as if he were half-expecting to be shot in the back of the head.

  ‘Von Menen,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Carl, it’s me.’

  Von Menen sprang to his feet. ‘Thank God! Where’ve you been? I’ve been phoning you for hours.’

  ‘Shopping; he gave me a few hours off.’

  ‘But I’ve been ordered to stay in my office and you knew I’d planned to leave early today. Why didn’t you phone me?’

  ‘Er… yes, sorry about that… but he wants to see you, immediately, with all your files.’

  ‘All my…! Why?’

  ‘No idea, but he was very insistent.’

  Von Menen replaced the receiver and stared at the ceiling. He knows… Wehmen knows.

  Clarita Brecht was standing before her desk, back to the door, prim and secretarial in a tight-fitting white blouse and black sheath skirt, stocking seams plumb line straight.

  Von Menen hastened through the door and hurried towards her, dropping a huge bundle of files on her desk. Cautious of Clarita’s feisty temperament, he didn’t care much for her high-pitched voice, either, but the rest was perfect: a stunningly attractive face; radiant, cerulean-blue eyes; shoulder-length tawny brown hair and legs the length of the Kiel Canal.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he whispered, an eye on Wehmen’s door.

  Clarita gracefully sat at her desk, placed her hand on a dark blue folder lying next to the phone and eased it towards him.

  ‘That’s what’s going on,’ she said. ‘Your personal file.’ She read aloud the inscription set bang in the middle of the cover. ‘Carl Franz von Menen, born 31.1.1913. Current Section: Foreign Information Department IIb, Iberia. In and out of my office all last week, it was. The Minister asked for it last Wednesday—’

  ‘The Minister?’

  ‘Yes, von Ribbentrop.’ She cocked her head in the direction of Wehmen’s door. ‘And he asked for it the next day… Called f
or it again on Friday.’

  Von Menen could scarcely believe his ears. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

  Clarita sprang to her feet, jabbed her hands on her hips, a potent look on her face. ‘Because Wehmen warned me that if I breathed a word of it to anyone, he’d have me transferred to Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry within twenty-four hours. He wasn’t joking, either. Imagine it; me, in the same building as that limping, licentious gnome. God, I can’t stand the man, you know I can’t.’

  ‘But something’s afoot, Clarita, and you’re sure to know what it is.’

  Clarita leaned over her desk, the buttons on her blouse tugging at the eyelets. ‘I don’t,’ she insisted. ‘Even if I did, I couldn’t possibly tell you. You know that.’

  ‘Not even after Saturday?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Carl.’ Fidgeting nervously with the cameo brooch pinned just above her bosom, she met his bewildered look. ‘All I know is that two men came to see him last Friday afternoon. They came again this morning and the moment they’d gone’ – another nod in the direction of Wehmen’s door – ‘he told me to type out the memo. But I’ve no idea if their visit had anything to do with you. I really don’t.’

  ‘Two men? Where from?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  Von Menen looked guardedly into her large blue eyes, beyond the memory of Saturday night: a tiny apartment on Ritterstrasse, soft lights, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and Artie Shaw’s “When They Begin the Beguine”.

  ‘It’s not like you to be so guarded, Clarita. Usually, you know everything that’s going on in my department. So…’

  ‘Well, this time I don’t, so you’ll just have to wait.’

  And wait he did, all the while wondering what the misfit Wehmen was up to. He’ll be sitting there, a crumpled mess in his honorary Obersturmbannführer uniform, an insidious look on his face, a foul-smelling Turkish cigarette in his mouth. ‘The Gestapo would like to have a word with you, von Menen… Something about a meeting at Wittenberge… Sounds very serious… Best you tell me everything…’

  The truth was, von Menen held no time for the Nazis, especially those of the sinister “Black Order”, and Wehmen was one of them: a xenophobe, a believer in State dominance over the people, a man with a razor-sharp knife who could arrange the fitting, cutting and stitching of a field grey Wehrmacht uniform in less time than it took to hum the opening bars of “Lili Marlene”.

  A note of alarm was ringing loudly inside von Menen’s head, and it was ringing loudly. Non-membership of the Nazi party was one thing; hiding a vehement dislike for Hitler and all he stood for, something else. He knew the risks, but his views were deeply entrenched in a covert fraternity of diverse political thinkers, people drawn together by the idea of a Nazi-free Germany.

  Such was the philosophy of the Kreisau Circle and such was the belief of its leader, Count Helmuth-James von Moltke, whose image of a post-Hitler Germany was that of a free, democratic country with honourable values. Von Menen admired von Moltke’s imaginative thinking, respected his unshakeable Christian values and saw his vision of life after the Nazis as highly creditable, but he did not agree with his passive, non-violent means of achieving it.

  Von Menen wanted change and he wanted it fast. In his judgement, life in Germany would not change until Hitler had gone and since ousting him by political means was beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, the only alternative was to kill him. A dangerous business, the penalties harsh and real: vice-like manacles, a complimentary stay at Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrecht Strasse and the painful procedure of what the Secret State Police referred to as “concentrated dialogue”, followed by a one-way ticket to Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. Or, more conclusively, the gallows at Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison.

  The intercom on Clarita’s desk sparked a dull tone, a red light blinking. She flicked down the switch, von Menen’s ear set to the speaker.

  ‘Yes, Doctor Wehmen?’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did he bring his files?’

  ‘All of them, sir.’

  ‘Good, lock them in your safe – I’ll deal with them tomorrow. And bring me his personal folder.’

  Clarita switched off the intercom and reached for the folder, an impassive look on her face. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this,’ she said quietly, ‘and you know I shouldn’t, but when Wehmen told me to type out the memo, he did say something. He said…’ She paused, Goebbels’ office still on her mind.

  Von Menen leaned halfway across her desk. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, “I think his time here is over”.’

  ‘I think his time here is… over?’

  ‘His exact words.’

  File tucked under her arm, Clarita made to depart, but halfway to Wehmen’s door, she stopped, turned and walked back to him.

  ‘There’s something else you should know, too,’ she said, her eyes exuding defiant finality. ‘I won’t be here when you come out, and please don’t try phoning me at home this evening.’ Clarita shook her head slowly, her face bereft of expression. ‘You fit the old formula nicely, Carl. I like you very much, but we both know we’re going nowhere with each other. Besides, Otto is back from Prague this evening. If ever he found out…’ She stepped closer; kissed him softly on the side of his neck. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, ‘but it’s over, end of story.’

  At that, she padded hurriedly to Wehmen’s office, knocked on the door and stepped inside. Von Menen waited in silence, a sense of unease casting a deep shadow over his usual composure.

  A moment later, Clarita’s pretty face appeared around the doorframe. ‘Herr von Menen,’ she called, ‘Doctor Wehmen will see you now.’

  The room looked like a Nazi shrine: a huge gilt-framed portrait of Hitler above the fireplace, hand on hip; furled swastika flags flanking the chimney breast. Even the handles of the glistening fireplace companion set were topped with encircled swastikas.

  On the wall at the rear of Wehmen’s desk, a more personal touch: large signed photographs of the disciples from hell; Göring, Himmler, Goebbels, Speer, Bormann and the man who would not be outshone, Joachim von Ribbentrop – “Best wishes and kind regards, Heil Hitler!” All that remained of Hess, who’d bailed out of his Messerschmitt over the lowlands of Scotland a few weeks earlier, was a brass picture hook and a square of faded flock wallpaper.

  A man in his late fifties, overweight, with thin grey hair and a pale, chubby face, looked up from behind his desk, a fold of loose flesh hanging beneath his chin. Von Menen’s eyes settled on the navy-blue suit, peppered with ash and dandruff. No uniform, no ‘Heil Hitler’. Thank God. Wehmen picked up his pince-nez, rubbed the lenses with a large white handkerchief, and then planted them on the bridge of his nose, his sagging, joyless eyes peering at the folder before him.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, in a grating voice.

  Von Menen did as instructed, the green leather chair creaking beneath his eighty kilos, the stench of Turkish cigarettes filling his nostrils.

  Wehmen folded his chubby hands and rested them on his barrel-like chest. ‘Had a visit from two Gestapo officers this morning,’ he said dryly.

  Von Menen swallowed hard, a chill zipping down his spine.

  ‘Asked me a lot of searching questions about a matter which requires my immediate attention. I’d like to think it doesn’t concern you, von Menen, but if it does, you might be leaving this building for a place’ – Wehmen looked fleetingly at the two open windows above Wilhelmstrasse – ‘where there are no windows and the only food is thin cabbage soup.’

  ‘Questions about what, Doctor Wehmen?’

  ‘Trustworthiness… conscientiousness.’

  Von Menen’s heart froze. He could almost hear the sound of the cell doo
r clanging shut behind him. ‘Conscientious…ness, sir?’ he ventured.

  ‘Yes. A classified Foreign Office file was discovered on a train at Lehrter Station, just over a week ago – Sunday 15th, to be precise. It was found by a passenger who’d arrived from Wismar on the same train, saw it lying on a seat in a first class compartment and handed it to the police. It contained an unsigned draft report concerning the political relationship between Spain and America…’

  Eyes wide open, von Menen leaned forward.

  ‘There’s no record of the file being withdrawn from registry,’ continued Wehmen, ‘but I will find out who took it. It’s only a matter of time. The fact is, you have a certain responsibility for the Iberian Peninsula, Wismar is no great distance from your family’s estate and I suspect you travel first class.’

  ‘But, sir, not once have I left this building with any sensitive material. What’s more…’ – von Menen delved hurriedly into his jacket pocket, pulled out his diary, thinking aloud as he flicked through the pages – ‘11th, 12th… Yes, I have it here, sir… Friday 13th June… I drove to Potsdam, stayed at a friend’s house for the entire weekend and returned to Berlin on Monday morning. My friend will vouch for that.’

  ‘Good… just as well,’ said Wehmen, ‘because I’ve been looking at your personal record and it makes for impressive reading. Frankly, I didn’t think you’d be so damn irresponsible to leave this building with a highly sensitive document. All the same, I had to ask you.’

  Full of renewed confidence, von Menen checked his watch. ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘my leave? I don’t suppose I—’

  Wehmen snapped into life. ‘Your leave! Haven’t you grasped what’s going on in this country? A new chapter in the Führer’s crusade has just begun and all you can think about is your leave!’

  I know about the “new chapter”, you buffoon. Who doesn’t? It’s been reported by every radio network from Tokyo to Texas.